{"id":5084370,"date":"2019-09-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlatinonews.com\/writing-program-works-to-close-hispanic-latino-academic-achievement-gap\/"},"modified":"2019-09-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T04:00:00","slug":"writing-program-works-to-close-hispanic-latino-academic-achievement-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/2019\/09\/09\/writing-program-works-to-close-hispanic-latino-academic-achievement-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Program Works to Close Hispanic, Latino Academic Achievement Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Annika Darling<\/a>, CTLatinoNews.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Latinos are the largest group of people of color in the U.S., making up 25 percent of the school-age students in Connecticut, and, across the board, these Latino students fall behind their White and Asian counterparts in academic achievements and educational attainments. However, one Canadian professor\u2019s new intervention method has proven ability to change all that. <\/p>\n\n\n

Jordan Peterson, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, has developed an online writing series\u2014Self Authoring Suite: Past Authoring, Present Authoring, Future Authoring\u2014that research shows is a promising tool for marginalized communities to not only boost skills critical for academic achievement but hone those that determine happiness and success in life. <\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand how powerful writing can be.\u201d <\/p>Jordan Peterson, PhD, Psychology, University of Toronto<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Dr. Peterson developed the Self Authoring Suite with colleagues to combat the diverse community achievement gap. He says the results have been overwhelming for himself and fellow researches, considering that most intervention programs that are developed \u201cdon\u2019t do what you hoped they would do or even sometimes have the opposite effect.\u201d So, the fact that this intervention method is doing exactly what they hoped, well, he says, \u201cIt\u2019s been really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

The development of the online computerized writing programs was heavily influenced, Dr. Peterson says, by Dr. James Pennebaker (one of Dr. Peterson\u2019s favorite psychologists). Dr. Pennebaker is the Centennial Liberal Arts Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin<\/a> and has conducted work on the effects of expressive writing since the 1980s. His research has shown that those who wrote about traumatic experiences and\/or uncertainty had improved productivity and health, particularly if the individuals wrote about causal accounts (connecting emotion with causes) or constructed future plans in their writings. This is all part of goal-setting theory, which holds that writing down concrete, specific goals and strategies can help people overcome obstacles and achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n

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